The October Music, Stanza 2 - Day 29

Whatever Doesn’t Kill Me (Better Run)

            It’s said the most dangerous animal is one that has been wounded and no longer is able to flee. I can confirm that is an accurate statement. I’m hiding in an abandoned factory after escaping from the Rock Island Terror and I am through running. Two weeks. Two weeks I spent being handcuffed to that rusty bed frame being cut and burned and touched in ways only something from my past repressed memories would dare. But rust as an aesthetic choice is stupid. Sure, it may look cool and creepy, but it also makes structural integrity unstable at best.

            That’s how I escaped. I forced the frame to bend and snap and now I’m here. I’m half-dressed like some horror movie victim. I’m covered in dried blood, mostly mine. I hurt all over. And I am very pissed off. By now, he knows I’ve gotten loose. He must be panicking, just a little bit, because his plan has gone awry. Everyone knows his MO: take, torture for two weeks, kill, dump the body near the shoreline, repeat. I was probably twelve hours away from Step 3 and now he’s at a loss.

            He’s coming. I know that for sure. He’s not going to just chalk this one up as an L and try again. He has to find me and end me. Not just because I know who he is, but because it’s part of his ritual. Can’t throw that off, you know? So, he’s coming. He’ll check this factory first, I imagine. It’s the nearest sign of civilization to his cabin and he’ll assume – correctly – that I will need to rest and collect my thoughts.

            He’ll enter via one of the side doors - the side door on the west of the building actually because all the other doors have been ‘damaged’. The handles have been snapped off by ‘someone’. He’s being directed to where I want him. He’s not the only one who can hunt, you know.

            So, he’ll enter the west door quietly, like a mouse sneaking through a church. He will enter and see rows upon rows of old shelves. He’ll take a right because his left will be blocked by tall boxes. He will go to the end of the row and stop because he will see ‘me’ crumpled in a heap. He will not think it’s a trap because he thinks he’s too smart for that. He will draw his knife and creep slowly toward the heap of me. He will raise the knife high and plunge it into the pile of trash bags I set up.

            And then I will lower the noose I have made from old chains and rusty nails. I will get it around his neck and then I will hold on to the loose end as I jump off the top shelf. It will hurt me, hitting the floor like that. It will do more than hurt him.

            There’s the door. I’m in position.
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            Lord, I hope this works.